Buffs and Nerfs, September 2017 — Part 2

My previous suggestions were to reduce the duration of his Prowl from 3 turns to 2, and to increase the cooldown of his dash from 2 to 3 if used on an enemy. I’d like to modify that a bit.

I would keep the 2 turn baseline stealth from my previous changes. Change Hunting Dog to “Stealth lasts 3 turns.” Hunting Dog is honestly terrible anyway and it hurts my soul when people run it. Also, Stealth no longer gives Might. Put that on the 3 turn mod too if you want. Make the PuP player work for that stuff. Hunting Dog now reads: Your Prowl Protocol lasts an additional turn and grants might.

Let’s not increase his dash cooldown since mobility is sort of part of his core identity — he’s melee and needs to dash around or he’ll get kited too easily. But let’s make his other abilities a little less oppressive. His ult is insanely good but I don’t want to nerf it — it’s an ult. Walkies is also insane — let’s leave that as is for now maybe, though I was considering a cooldown increase given how much stronger it is than comparable knockbacks. Let’s nerf his bite first. 36 damage and 10 hp base PER TARGET…way too much. We can leave him having high healing, but let’s nerf his max hit points a bit and his damage output. I prefer subtle nerfs first, so I would have suggested 36 damage and 8 hp base. And reduce his max hp to 145 down from 160. That way PuP can at least be punished a little more easily. But I don’t think that’s enough. I would reduce his damage to 30 and leave the healing at 10. That way he can sustain himself and have that be his “thing.” His primary is still a 40 damage “swing” per target, which is still the highest in the game.

Alternatively, because there are really a lot of options, if you want to leave his Bite as super-powerful, on the theory that PuP is just the best duelist in the game and that’s his thing, I would consider perhaps increasing the cooldown of Walkies by 1. Let him get someone alone if he wants, and crush them while alone with them, but he can’t do it quite as much.

Phaedra

Some folks have come out against the range nerf from 5 to 4. Others seem to support it. I do think her range is oppressive, but one potentially reasonable alternative is reducing the “behind walls” damage. On the other hand, that’s also something iconic to Phaedra. Something needs to give, though. Her primary is insanely strong and she doesn’t really lose power anywhere else to compensate. Other possibilities include nerfing Mending back to 60 (though I would argue that’s a skill-based ability and should be strong) or nerfing her dash range by 1. Maybe nerf her energy gain a bit. And, of course, values can be tweaked. A few damage nerfs might bring her in line without losing the flavor of the kit. I’m not proposing anything concrete here because I’m genuinely not sure what the best solution is, but there are lots of options.

Nev:3

Apparently some folks use Inertia. Cool! So instead of changing it, my suggested replacement should just be a new, additional mod option. We could name it Momentum. (A nice contrast to Inertia.)

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Okay, on to new stuff!

Helio

Helio is just too strong. I love him, but facts are facts. It seems like most games he gets Exemplar and sometimes even Devastator, even when baddies play him. One significant aspect is that his ultimate is amazing, especially with Ironclad, but I like high-impact ults. Instead, I would nerf Helio’s energy gain so he can’t ult quite as much — at least not without going an Energy build. I might also nerf Echo Hammer’s damage by a little bit.

Proposed changes: Blast Shield now grants 6 energy, down from 8. Echo Hammer now grants 5 energy per target hit, down from 6. Black Hole now grants 6 energy on cast, down from 8. Wall now grants 6 energy per target hit, down from 8. Echo Hammer now deals 20 base damage, down from 22; subsequent hits deal 10, down from 12.

Khita

Khita is in a decent spot, in my opinion, and I recall the days when she was overpowered. Okay, no I don’t — she came out and was subsequently nerfed just before I started playing. I think she has a nice niche as a half-firepower half-support hybrid. But she’s listed as a support, and I think she could do slightly better on that front. But I don’t want to make her overpowered. So, I’m going to propose a fairly minor change or two that I think would be neat.

Proposed changes: Leaf in the Wind (mod on Warped Arrow) is now baseline. (Stocked Quiver becomes the new default mod for that ability.) (The idea here is that Leaf in the Wind lets you get creative shots and is a very fun thing to have. By making it baseline, we let Khita have a bit more fun and let her play with some other mods on her primary, such as the one below.)

New Mod: Bullseye (3 points). When you hit an enemy with Warped Arrow, your bow becomes Emblazoned for two turns. Hitting an enemy with Warped Arrow while Emblazoned will reduce the cooldown of Take Aim! by 1. (You are then no longer Emblazoned, and must hit another Warped Arrow to become Emblazoned again.) (The idea being you can only trigger this once per Take Aim!, maybe twice if you don’t use any other abilities and hit every shot, and sometimes you may not be able to get any reduction. Rewards skill and increases her healing output in a hopefully non-broken way. I wanted the mod to be expensive and lend itself to a distinct playstyle — a theme with my 3-point mod suggestions — but not be so good as to be a must-take.)

Aurora

Aurora heals others nicely…if they’re in a line. The issue is, she doesn’t heal herself well. While that’s something of a weakness you might expect in a support, the truth is that most supports with real heal abilities actually do heal themselves when using their primary heal (Orion, Su-Ren, Finn, Meridian, etc.). So, I would propose something similar to what, say, Orion or Meridian has.

Proposed change: When Aurora heals an ally with Healing Flare, she heals herself for 15 as well. (The knockback only occurs on the targeted ally. The Surging Flare mod restores an additional 4 hit points to Aurora if she is under 50% health [similar to Meridian].)